Clean Affordable Energy for All: Sustainable energy for all could in the 21st century

Times News Network: The UNFCCC will be instrumental in driving the low-carbon transition, while also providing a framework for the transfer of technology and finance. The ongoing negotiations will determine how equitable and ambitious any deal is. The post-2015 framework should not conflict with but work alongside the UNFCCC Process in its development of a climate deal. In fact, a strong low–?carbon and climate resilient development framework will support a strong and effective 2015 Global climate deal to be in force by 2020.

Learning from experience

Sustainable Energy for All: a more inclusive process UN Secretary General Ban K-moon’s Sustainable Energy for All Initiative (or SE4All) has tried to create goals and indicators to Achieve its three 2030 objectives: ensuring universal energy access; doubling the share of renewables in the global energy mix; and doubling energy efficiency globally. However, the initiative has been widely criticized by civil society for its corporate-rather than people-driven approach and its insufficient ambition in the face of climate change. This offers valuable lessons for any post-2015 framework. If SE4All is to achieve the wholesale energy transformation needed to deliver sustainable development in a carbon-constrained
world, it must address current weaknesses and gaps in its approach by:
-Developing a definition of universal energy access, which focuses on delivery of energy Services to poor men and women, employing demand–?side indicators that focus on energy Poverty alleviation, and the ability to access energy.
-Technology-neutral. Clean, i.e. low-carbon, efficient technologies must be privileged, especially for large-scale for generating grid electricity. Conversely, Socially and environmentally-harmful technologies like coal, nuclear, large-scale hydro and industrial biofuels cannot qualify as ‘sustainable’ Energy sources.
-Including Civil society as one of the three pillars of SE4 All Along with government and private sector. SE4 All must ensure the energy poor and civil society can participate fully in design and delivery of national action plans and in SE4All’s International governance.
-Ensuring that delivery models focus on linking the poorest to energy products and Service markets are be prioritized. This requires the substantial involvement of governments, donor agencies, NGOs And social enterprises.

Our vision for the world we want

In the world we want, energy poverty has been eradicated and a “just transition” to a low- carbon world has stopped catastrophic climate change while creating sustainable economies and livelihoods that deliver development. Underpinning this is the fair and democratic control and ownership of our energy system, with equitable production and consumption of energy for socially useful purposes.
Meeting the energy needs for development in a way that does not drive catastrophic climate change demands a radically different vision of growth and development in the Post-2015 period: one that is socially and economically inclusive and environmentally sustainable.
The central challenge is breaking away from the current entrenched fossil fuel-based energy system and overturning the powers that control it, while ensuring the rewards of a sustainable energy system are shared by all equally. This will require a fundamental shift leading to a major transformation to economic and development trajectories.
The post-2015 framework needs to be one of the drivers to achieve that transformation
In how economies and development work; it must have sustainable development at its heart.
The challenge is to simultaneously tackle the inequality of access to and use of energy within and between countries, while ensuring the way it is delivered does not compromise the global commons, i.e. the atmosphere, clean air, fresh water and other shared natural resources. The main purpose of the post-2015 framework is to meaningfully integrate poverty and environmental sustainability concerns into a comprehensive development framework, an ambition that is impossible without universal energy access and the decarburization of energy systems.

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